1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electronic commerce system and electronic commerce method, to be used by at least one purchaser, a seller and a settlement agency.
2. Description of the Related Art
For example, U.S. Patent Publication No. 6,016,484 (System, Method and Articles of Manufacture for Network Electronic Payment Instrument and Certification of Payment and Credit Collection Utilizing a Payment) discloses a technique regarding digital money. The disclosure of the this publication is herein incorporated by reference in this specification.
As the Internet is widely used, there are various kinds of electronic commerce systems conducted over the Internet. One kind of electronic commerce system is for conducting electronic commerce using a predetermined calculation system and the Internet. There are two types of settlement, one of which is “prepaid settlement” and the other of which is “deferred payment”, in the electronic settlement on the Internet. The typical example of the “prepaid settlement” includes a prepaid-card payment method, while the typical example of the “deferred payment” includes a credit-card payment method.
In the prepaid-card payment method, the user (purchaser) pays a predetermined amount of money to a prepaid-card issuer, and the seller allows the purchaser to purchase goods in the range of the paid amount of money. In the “prepaid settlement”, the settlement can be made each time a business transaction is done. In addition, in the “prepaid settlement”, the user may possibly leave a certain amount of money without spending all. In the case where the prepaid-card company is bankrupted, the user may not be able to get back the money that the user has not spent yet.
Such a problem does not occur in the “deferred payment” method employing the credit card, etc. In the “deferred payment” method, the purchaser decides the goods to purchase first, and then the settlement will be made for the total price of the goods, in accordance with the number affixed to the credit card of possessed by the purchaser.
Those techniques regarding the deferred payment method employing the credit card are disclosed in: Unexamined Japanese Patent Application KOKAI Publication No. H11-353382; Unexamined Japanese Patent Application KOKAI Publication No. H11-345264; U.S. Pat. No. 5,317,636 (Method and Apparatus for Securing Credit Card Transactions); U.S. Pat. No. 5,671,279 (Electronic Commerce Using a Secure Courier System); U.S. Pat. No. 5,715,399 (Secure Method and System for Communicating a List of Credit Card Numbers Over a Non-secure Network); U.S. Pat. No. 5,724,424 (Digital Active Advertising); U.S. Pat. No. 5,727,163 (Secure Method for Communicating Credit Card Data When Placing an Order on a Non-secure Network); and U.S. Pat. No. 6,023,682 (Method and Apparatus for Credit Card Purchase Authorization Utilizing a Comparison of a Purchase Token with Test Information). The disclosure of the above publications are herein incorporated by reference in this specification.
There are various problems wherein the “deferred payment” method using the credit card is employed in the electronic commerce. Specifically, according to the “deferred payment” method, it is necessary to transmit the number of the purchaser's credit card number through the Internet, but the transmitted credit card number may possibly be wiretapped by someone on the Internet. To securely transmit the credit card number through the Internet, it is proposed to encrypt information to be transmitted over the Internet. Those techniques for encrypting information includes SSL (Secure Socket Layer), SHTTP (Secure Hyper Text Transfer Protocol), PEM (Privacy Enhancement for Internet Electronic Mail), MOSS (MIME Object Security Services), IPSP, etc.
Even if the credit card number is transmitted in the encrypted form, the electronic commerce method employing the credit card has the following problems:
U.S. Pat. No. 5,727,163 discloses an electronic commerce technique for performing electronic commerce over the Internet According to this technique, when a user shops at an electronic mall, the user is to specify the goods to purchase, the delivery place and the payment method so as to fill in an order sheet. At this time, the user is to transmit a part of his/her credit-card number but not in a complete form. Upon reception of the order sheet, a person in charge of the electronic mall calls the user by dialing the phone number of the user which has been written in the order sheet beforehand. At this time, the user is asked to input his/her phone number by pressing the dial of the telephone. Then, the system of the electronic mall compares the input number and the number written in the order sheet. As a result of the comparison, in the case where the input number coincides with the number of the order sheet, the order is succeeded.
Unexamined Japanese Patent Application KOKAI Publication No. H11-345264 discloses an electronic commerce technique. According to this technique, to perform the settlement of the bill using a credit card, there is employed a mobile communications terminal having a system for transmitting the transmitter number, instead of using a credit inquiry communications device.
Even with the above technique wherein the credit card number can not securely be transmitted, there still remains a problem for the purchaser. According to this technique, the purchaser provides the seller with his/her credit-card number. That is, the purchaser has to give the seller the credit card number, together with the purchaser's personal information including his/her name, address, phone number, etc. Thus, it is possible that the credit card number is used by the seller for some unintended purposes. In addition, in the case where the personal information is sold to the third party after the seller is bankrupted or something, the purchaser can have serious problems.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,671,279 discloses an electronic commerce technique. According to this technique, the purchaser sends his/her credit-card number after being encrypted, the seller sends the encrypted credit card number to a settlement agency, and the settlement agency examines whether the settlement can be made for the purchaser. Even with this technique, the purchaser's credit card number can still be kept by the seller.
The most secure electronic commerce method is that the purchaser does not let the seller know his/her credit card number, and still purchases the desired goods.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,724,424 discloses such a technique for performing electronic commerce while the purchaser's credit-card number is not available to the seller. According to this technique, the purchaser attaches his/her credit card number to the order sheet, and sends the order sheet to the settlement agency through the Internet. When the settlement agency allows the payment to be made, the agency issues a payment permit to the purchaser. Then, the purchaser sends the permit and the order sheet to the seller using the Internet.
However, according to this method, in the case where the purchaser has malice, it involves the financial risk for the seller or settlement agency. For example, there is a purchaser who can purchase goods or services at maximum of “¥50,000” at each business transaction. This purchaser may make alteration in the order sheet for goods or services of ¥500,000, and rewrites “¥500,000” to “¥50,000”, and gets a permit from the settlement agency for the goods or services of “¥500,000” at the price of “¥50,000”. Then, the purchaser provides the seller with the permit including the order sheet of ¥500,000. Without any suspiciousness, the seller may deliver the ordered goods to the purchaser. Unfortunately, the seller gets only ¥50,000 for the delivered goods afterwards. Alternatively, the user having malice may forge the permit itself.
The above publication simply describes the permit issued by the settlement agency as one which can not be altered, and does not disclose a specific technique for forming the permit. In any technique, even if the permit is encrypted, as long as the user is malicious, the permit may still possibly be altered. In order to completely eliminate this possibility, it is necessary not to provide the purchaser with the permit.
Unexamined Japanese Patent Application KOKAI Publication No. H11-353382 discloses an electronic commerce system for realizing secure and economical electronic commerce. According to this technique, the purchaser sends a purchaser ID number directly to the settlement agency, not via the seller. The seller forms settlement-agency data including a plurality of pieces of charge data for each purchaser at predetermined intervals, and create settlement data in association with the formed settlement-agency data. Then, the seller sends the settlement data to the settlement agency, and sends to the purchaser the settlement-agency data, as asking information for asking the purchaser to send the provided ID number to the settlement agency. That is, the seller calculates and settles the bill for each purchaser at predetermined intervals, and instructs the purchaser to send the ID number to the settlement agency. Hence, even according to this method, as long as the purchaser is malicious, the electronic commerce according to this method involves financial risk for the seller and settlement agency. Because the goods or services have already been provided to the purchaser, the seller can not be paid for the ordered goods or services unless the purchaser has enough money to pay.
Further, there is disclosed a technique for realizing an electronic settlement system and an electronic-commerce services provider system. This relates to an electronic-settlement permission system in the electronic commerce, such as the one-line shopping through the Internet. According to this technique, it is prevented to spread the personal information that should be kept unavailable to any third party, such as the credit card number, over the Internet. Further, the settlement agency calls back the user terminal through a public network, so that the secure electronic commerce can be realized with ease. The settlement agency needs both of the settlement data provided from the seller and the ID number from the purchaser, to perform settlement. Hence, the terminal used by the settlement agency needs to store information, having being input before both of the above information are transmitted, in a predetermined memory area, so that a part of the memory area is mostly occupied by for nothing. Before the settlement is successfully performed, the settlement data and the transmission of the ID number are transmitted separately, i.e. the transmission is done at least twice. In this structure, the resources of the network are not effectively used.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,317,636 discloses an electronic commerce method. According to this method, the smart card replaces the credit card, and an order number, representing how many business transactions will have been made including a currently-processed transaction, is encrypted and shown. This order number is used as a password of the credit card. A computer which is to perform the user authentication deciphers the password so as to obtain the order number, using a predetermined method. This computer authenticates the user by determining whether the deciphered password coincides with one stored in the computer. According to this method, it is necessary to prepare the smart card in place of the credit card, and the order number needs to be encrypted.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,671,279 discloses a technique for securely performing payment using the credit card, through a public telephone line through which information may possibly be wiretapped. According to this method, the user sends the encrypted credit-card number to the seller, and the seller sends the encrypted credit card number as is to the settlement agency. Then, the settlement agency carries out the user authentication process based on the sent credit card number. According to his technique, even the credit card number is encrypted, the credit card number is still given to the seller. Hence, it involves the financial risk for the purchaser.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,715,399 discloses an electronic commerce technique. According to this technique, in the case where the electronic mall system has already obtained a plurality of credit cards of a user having currently ordered some goods to be purchased, the system asks the user to select one of the plurality of credit cards for this-time transaction. At this time, the credit card number is not fully displayed, but partially displayed. In this case, even if the third party reads the credit card number over the purchaser's shoulder, the credit card number can not fully be recognized by the third party. However, the credit card number has already been given to the electronic mall system in its complete form, so that this system may possibly involve the financial risk for the purchaser.